Flames In The Sky
by skeletonrae
Summary: Harry takes the only escape offered to him: a contract with a pirate captain. end game tomarry, pirate au, i have a disinclination towards following canon
1. Prologue

_Listen closely, ya buggers. There are only three rules._

Harry threw back his head and laughed, a carefree and young sound.

The sun shone down on Harry and his companions. They were in a group, settled under a bridge; they were celebrating their winnings of the day.

"Oy, Henny, what'd yeh git?" Clarence, better known as Bovvy (on account of his huge stature- it reminded the children of cows, or in this case, bovines. No one was sure who remembered what the word bovine meant, but it stuck) called to Harry.

Bovvy was in charge; almost 16 years of age, he was the oldest in the gang. His shoulders were broad, and despite being a street urchin, he sported a big belly. His nose was crooked from being broken too many times, and his teeth were yellow and uneven.

 _Follow these rules and ol' Bovvy'll take care of yeh._

"Uhm, lemme see. Seven pennies, it looks like." Harry, called also by the name Henny, was the only one in the group who could count. It came from his earlier days, before he was left on the street. His parents had been rich, he remembered, but had died. He was too young to remember much of anything else.

He did, however, remember being taken in by his cousins; he also remembered the consequent abuse and pain. His cousins didn't take well to his intrusion.

It may have been pain, but they saw use in his math skills. He didn't like to recall it, anyways.

"An' you, Alby?" Bovvy looked to the next child, a small girl of maybe 6 years. She was like a flower, delicate, small, and deadly when eaten by the wrong thing. She was their distraction, a cute face for a rich man to look at while he was being robbed blind.

She held up eight pennies, her angelic smile shining through her gapped front teeth.

"Ah, fuck me over why don't yeh. You've gone and upped me." Harry pouted, handing Alby's and his money to Bovvy. "She's gotten eight."

 _You're one of us now_.

Bovvy laughed, and clapped the two of them on the shoulder. There were more of them in the gang, proudly called the Land Pirates, but it was Alby and Harry's turn to pay up.

Alby and Harry were partners, but only because Harry had nimble fingers and Alby had a cute face. Usually an older kid would be paired with a younger one.

Bovvy, however dumb and brutish he might be, did have a streak of slyness in him after all.

"An' here's yeh share," Bovvy said, giving Alby one penny, and two to Harry.

Harry scampered away, followed closely by Alby. It never crossed their minds to take all the money they earned; it was against the Rules, and Bad Things happened to those who crossed Bovvy.

 _Rule #1: Any money earned before sundown belongs to Bovvy. If he feels like it, you might get a portion._

Harry spent his days in the city, peddling and stealing. He and Alby made a great team, and soon they became one of Bovvy's best thief-teams.

 _Rule #2: Any money earned after sundown is yours, but give Bovvy a lil bit of love, eh?_

Harry grew up on the streets, stealing and bamboozling and sometimes starving.

He lived in a port-town, so he was fed a steady diet of fish and sailor stories; he dreamed of one day joining a crew, maybe moving up and becoming a captain himself.

He dreamed of freedom, of the sea, and of girls.

 _Rule #3: Never, ever snitch_.

Harry snitched. Bovvy had been doing some seedier than usual shit, and Harry couldn't take it. Alby had disappeared. Every so often Harry would hear rumors of girls disappearing, gone into the night.

He knew it was Bovvy; he knew the man had become too greedy for his britches.

And so, against every single bone in his body, Harry told the authorities. He told them where their base was, he told them how he used to work for Bovvy, he told them of all the crimes he had been made to do.

And in return, they threw him in jail. Shackled him up, and left him to rot. Lady Luck really did hate him.

 _If you snitch, Bovvy'll make sure you regret it._

"Serves me right," Harry rasped, his lips dry and throat sore from lack of water. "Shoulda listened to common sense, and not the goodness o' my heart."

He spoke to an empty cell, devoid of anything except for moldy hay and a half-full bucket in the corner. The shackles on his wrists were chafing him. He was thoroughly miserable.

He didn't know how long he'd been there, only that he was ready to leave.

'If any saints are watching,' he thought to himself, 'send help maybe?'

And maybe a saint was watching, because there was, quite suddenly, a commotion above Harry's cell. He heard yelling, a gunshot, and then a high pitched scream.

Glass broken, chairs smashed, and laughter. Someone was breaking the jail apart, bit by bit.

And Harry sat, and waited. They would get to him eventually, and maybe he'd see freedom again.

 **hey guys! i've been on hiatus for... probably three years now? by hiatus i mean i've been lurking, but not publishing. i made the executive decision to delete most all my stories. sorry!!! they were, Bad. anyways. this is a tom riddle / harry potter eventual pairing. love y'all!**


	2. Chapter One

The men come down the stairs, whooping and hollering. They looked wild; they wore rags, no shoes, had tattoos, earrings, and gold teeth. They held with them a ring of keys, jingling like a song of freedom.

They explored the hallway leading to Harry's cell, banging and yelling into the other cells.

Harry knew they were empty. He'd been here a while; he was more interested in the keys.

'If I call their attention,' Harry thought to himself, 'then I'll have the attention of people who could potentially free me. They do have keys, after all. But, on the other hand, they could also kill me.'

It was only a brief moment where Harry hesitated, but it ended up not mattering. The tallest of the pirates dropped a bottle of liquid on the floor. Startled by his own clumsiness, he stumbled against the nearest wall. This caused him to knock a torch off the wall, which then fell onto the liquid (most likely pirate brandy) which then in turn promptly caught fire.

"You bastard!" One pirate, shorter than the other two, with a bald head and full red beard, yelled at the taller man. "That was mine!"

"It weren't, and yer a dirty rotten liar for it!" The other, dark skinned and with dreadlocks, yelled right back.

The third pirate cursed, before running back to the stairs. The other two followed him, ill-will forgotten and comrades in sin once again.

Harry, however, was left with a fire raging nearby and shackles on his wrists. He promptly abandoned his pride.

"Help! Heeeeelp!! Anybody! Hello?" He yelled, pulling at his chains. Instead of loosening them (as he had hoped) it only broke his bruised skin and caused bleeding.

"Oh fuck me sideways," he cursed, looking around desperately for an escape. There, on the floor, he saw it. They had dropped the keys in their haste, leaving them a scant few feet from Harry's cell.

Harry, for a precious few seconds, tried to reach them. He stretched out his whole body, using his toes to try and grab the ring.

Usually it's useful to be short and small. It's easier to reach places that ought not to be reached, easier to pretend to be young.

It was most definitely not a good thing when you were struggling for your life to reach an object. Harry was barely three inches away from the keys, fully stretched out. There was no chance of him grabbing them.

An explosion boomed above him, and the fire steadily crept towards his cell. The keys jumped slightly at the explosion, moving farther away from him.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit," Harry chanted in a mockery of prayer. The fire was becoming too hot, and Harry withdrew.

He coughed from the smoke, gasping at the heat. It didn't take long for him to pass out.

HPHPHP

Harry had never before wondered what death felt like. He just kind of assumed that it would be nothing- nothing to feel, nothing to worry about.

He didn't think it felt like flames creeping over his body, the inescapable urge to claw at his skin and free himself, or the agony of a parched throat.

Even if he had thought that's what it felt like, he would be wrong. Harry wasn't dead; he was merely mostly dead.

Voices murmured above him, distantly distracting him. He felt like he was floating, bathing in pain. Burns everywhere caused him aggravation, and he honestly wished he had died.

He felt back asleep to the soothing sounds of waves.

HPHPHP

When Harry woke up again, the first sensation he felt was pain. The second was the unmistakable roll of the ocean under a ship deck.

He groaned, in too much pain to do anything else.

"Ah, you're awake." A quiet voice beside him spoke. Harry startled, causing himself more pain. He hadn't opened his eyes yet, and had not been aware of the man's presence.

"Calm down," the voice consoled, "if I were going to hurt you, I wouldn't have waited 'til now."

Harry tried to calm his breathing, but it was a hard thing to do when he felt like there was a whole ship sitting upon his chest. He felt fatigued, as if he'd not had a good nights rest in several weeks.

"Oi! You! Go alert the captain. He's awake." Harry heard the pattering of small footsteps, and tried to open his eyes. It worked, but his head immediately began to pound-another injury he hadn't yet noticed.

Harry was in a small cabin room, laying down on a hard bed. The room was lit by a single hanging lamp, and a small window sat above Harry's head. There was little else to see, but Harry knew that, for a ship, this room was huge.

Harry found that he was topless, his scarred chest exposed. It was covered in what used to be white bandages, now stained from blood. His trousers were burned and patchy in places. Shoes were a luxury Harry seldom had the pleasure of knowing. Now was no different.

The next thing he noticed was the man sitting on a stool beside him, staring. Harry could tell, even when the man was sitting down, that he loomed. His hair was pulled back in a low ponytail, bits of oily black hair falling free; his nose was hooked, and his skin sallow.

"Wh-" Harry croaked, before coughing. His chest hurt even more. "Where... am I...?" He asked between trying to breathe.

"You are aboard the Voldemort." the man said, distaste clear on his face. Harry didn't know whether the man was upset by the ship's name, Harry himself, or just life in general.

"I'm Doctor Tobias Snape. You may call me Doctor Snape, or sir. I saved your life," he sneered, "and I will take it if need be."

Harry coughed once more.

"I thought you weren't going to kill me?" Harry asked, snark oozing into his voice.

Something about this man pissed him off, and he wasn't sure what it was. Maybe it was the disdain on his face, reminding Harry of his own street urchin days- when rich men would sneer at Harry as if he were a rat. Perhaps it was his situation that made him lash out, and this doctor was the nearest target.

Harry coughed again.

... Or maybe it was the fact that Doctor Snape had not yet offered him water.

"I said if I wanted to, you would already be dead. I have yet to feel the need, or want, to kill you. Now stay quiet, or you might yet tempt me." Snape, Harry couldn't possibly imagine him being a legitimate doctor, snarked right back at Harry.

Before a full-blown argument could develop, a knock came from outside the small room. Snape bid the stranger enter, and in came a cabin-boy.

"The Captain's been told!" the boy chirped, disgustingly cheery. "He said," here the boy adopted a puffed up stature, standing tall and placing his hands behind his back in an obvious imitation of the captain, "'Tell Snape that I'll be there as soon as my business with Captain Black is completed.'" The boy's faux-deep voice was comical.

"Thank you, Michael." Snape watched the boy, amusement in his eyes. His attention turned to Harry. "This is where I leave you," he said as he stood up, "You'll meet Captain Riddle soon enough."

With that, both the boy and the man left Harry on his own.

He didn't have to wait for long.

 **hi guys! how's life?**


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